


Un Souvenir d'Événements

by ASpectralShade



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux, Phantom - Susan Kay, Phantom of the Opera - Lloyd Webber
Genre: Coming of Age, Leroux - inspired
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-24
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2019-11-29 12:02:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18222905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ASpectralShade/pseuds/ASpectralShade
Summary: Everyone knows the tragic tale of The Phantom of the Opera, but few know of his incredible past. From his youngest years spent in a travelling fair, to breaking free and beginning his journey around the world, discover the previously secret life of Erik. Written by the man himself and his equally mysterious companion, known simply as The Daroga to most, at last the secrets of the past are to be uncovered.





	1. Un Souvenir d'Événements

I often think back to the day I first met him. The boy who was said to be the eighth wonder of the world. A magician, master mason, illusionist, musician... Simply a genius. I felt so incredibly sorry for him. The burdens of all these titles resting heavily on his shoulders at such a young age. He couldn't have been much older than me at the time, around nine or ten. My mother took me to see him when they came to Persia. It was utterly incredible. I saw things I could never have imagined: men who could breathe fire, swallow swords and even a woman who they claimed was a real life witch. And I felt inclined to believe them, for she made all sorts of potions and magical things that no mortal could have done. Ah, but how ignorant I was. I was not to know that it was no more than an understanding of alchemy pieced together with a little sideshow magic. He was no trick though. He was as real as the air I breathe and the earth I walk upon. He was known to me only as the 'Devil's Child' and it was clear how he'd earned the name. Oh the poor boy. By the God’s , if I saw, yet again, a sight such as the one I did on that day, I fear I would never sleep again. Although the initial shock of seeing him startled me somewhat, it was what they did to him that truly scarred me. But as I write to you from 1881, all that is in the past now, and I think I speak for both of us when I say we will happily forget those dark times. Ah but that is only a very small portion of the tale as a whole. So, on this account I will make an exception. I'm writing this so that others will come to understand the tale.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone, just as a note, this is my first time using AO3 to publish anything myself so I'm getting used to the system. Therefore, ratings, warnings etc may not be entirely correct! As I update, I will alter things as applicable. In the future, there are mild references to suicide and drugs (though it's nothing particularly graphic, anyone who's read or seen enough about Phantom will know how and why these themes likely apply) but to everyone else, that's my warning for now. This will also end up being INCREDIBLY long (i.e. 70,000 words +) but either way, thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy!


	2. Summer 1841

I was born to my mother and father in eighteen twenty five. My brother Earl was born ten years prior to me; and my younger sister, Octavia, arrived about three years after. We lived in a small, unimpressive little house though oddly, it didn't feel cramped despite the fact there were five of us at the time. I didn't see my father all that much, he was always kept at work and would often spend months on end away from home. He was an architect and worked on some of the most magnificent buildings in Persia so although he spent months away, he brought in most of the money and by my fifth birthday, we'd moved into a larger and more lavish house. My mother remained at home to care for the four of us. She was unemployed but with my father a master mason and my brother looking to be a Doctor when he was old enough, we weren't too worried. I was soon old enough to go to school, which was as eventful as any normal schooling was, nothing especially interesting happened. Not in school anyway. For it was when I was in my tenth year that my mother first took me to the fair.

"You realise now that you're sixteen," my brother told me one morning, "that you can go to the fair."

I was overjoyed. For years I'd wanted to see what spectacles that fair held. All its strange and fantastical things that'd only ever been described to me by my older brother. At times, he'd terrify me with tales about the fair and the creatures and oddities that resided in it. Terrified though I was, I was still intrigued and fascinated by it all and with every story he told to me, that insatiable fascination of mine grew. I had to see it. So, when news came about that the fair had returned to the city, I was begging my mother to go but she wasn't as interested as I. However, she was the only one who would take me as my brother had work to do and my father was, yet again, absent from the household. Begrudgingly, she obliged and, leaving my sister under the care of Earl, took me into the city. We walked for about half an hour before we entered the into the large expanse of labyrinth like streets that I would come to know like the back of my hand. Back then though, I saw it as a huge maze of complex and confusing streets that puzzled and intimidated me to no end. Eventually, we reached the fair and my mother payed the entry fee. We showed our tickets and then we walked in. I ran off ahead of my mother, quite forgetting myself as I was enveloped by the want to see everything there was to see.

"Nadir!" I heard her cry, "Nadir don't run off!"

I stopped guiltily and stood in front of her, looking at my feet.

"Sorry mother."

I stayed close to her after that and we started to walk around the place. It was all so amazing yet in some cases frightening. Sword throwers, fortune tellers, fire breathers, contortionists, wild beasts like fierce lions and tigers and even, as I mentioned earlier, a 'real life witch.' As the day went on and I saw more and more incredible things, my mother told me to stay by her side as we went to see the last exhibit. It sounded miraculous yet terrifying and I was beginning to question whether I wanted to actually see it or not. The crowds around me talked incessantly of 'The Devils Child' saying things along the lines of:

"It's like a vision of hell on earth!"

"It's grotesque!”

"Yet you can’t look away.”

"Come on! Let's get to the front before everyone else."

They sprinted forward and soon there were masses stood around the cage containing this spectacle. I couldn't see a thing and I jumped up, trying desperately to see but it was no use. I was stood there for an age and I heard the crowds revulsion and horror as they saw whatever it was in that cage. I was pushed and shoved about by the unruly crowd and soon enough, by complete accident, I was at the front. I'd been long since separated from my mother by the crowds, and although I was worried and my instincts told me to look for her, I decided to chance a look into the cage. I desperately wanted to see this strange creature and my mind began to conjure up all kinds of wondrous things. Perhaps it was a savage beast with two heads, or maybe a dragon of some kind!

Ten minutes later, the crowd began to dissipate and I looked into of the cage. I was aghast and slightly disappointed to see the form of a young boy that was huddled up in the corner. His back was to me but I could see that he was so incredibly thin, it was as if I was staring at an actual skeleton. I would have believed him to be a skeleton too if it wasn't for the fact that he was trembling and in the silence that followed as the crowd left completely, I could hear him crying quietly. I felt so sorry for him. I noticed that he was bleeding and that his back was riddled with long, painful looking scars, some of which that looked particularly fresh. This boy had been whipped! It made me feel sick that someone would cage another person, and a boy at that!

"Hello?" I called to him.

He didn't move.

"I won't hurt you" I said softly, "I'm not like them."

He still didn't move.

"Nadir! There you are!”

I felt my mother pick me up and hug me tightly to her. She held me out at arms length

"Don't you dare run away from me again! You hear me?"

"But-"

"Nadir Kahn. Do. You. Hear. Me?"

I nodded, feeling very guilty all of a sudden. She put me down on the ground and took my hand.

"It's getting late" she commented, "we should go home before it gets dark"

"Oh mother no! We must save that little boy!"

She looked at me, "what are you talking about?"

I pointed to the cage "in there"

I watched as my mother went very pale indeed. "Nadir" she said gravely, "you mustn't go near him."

"But why?"

"You heard what he was called didn't you?"

"The Devil’s Child" I echoed from earlier.

"Yes. And I will not have my angel of a son going near a descendent of the devil himself!"

I hadn't realised it until now, I would blame it upon my young age at the time and my childlike fascination with the unknown, but it had taken me until this comment to realise, or rather recall, that most of my family were very religious. It was why my mother despised places like this, why she didn't want to take me in the first place. She saw it as a sin I was sure, yet she had still taken me and I knew now that she'd be praying for forgiveness that night. Despite this, I felt so incredibly sorry for the boy in the cage. He looked so afraid, so small and timid and frightened, how could he possibly be a descendant of the devil? I couldn't believe it. My mother took me home after that and, as I'd predicted, left me to pray. So I went in search of my brother.

I found him in the dining room, pouring over some medical books. Persia wasn't (and still isn't) renowned for its medical abilities though I believed my brother was going to be the best Doctor in Persia when he was older. A childish belief perhaps, but I was utterly convinced at the time, for he would always have a book of some kind that he'd be meticulously reading over and over again. He smiled when he saw me and closed his book. I jumped up onto the seat next to him.

"Well? Did the fair meet your expectations Nadir?" He asked me, smiling.

"Oh yes!" I replied with enthusiasm. I then proceeded to relate the events of the day and everything I'd seen and heard. Unlike the rest of my family, my brother wasn't as religious. Hence why he didn't mind the fair and shared my interest in it. But when I told him about the little boy in the cage, he listened to me with even more interest.

"I couldn't see his face, his back was to me. He looked like a skeleton!"

"Poor boy."

"That's what I thought."

"I didn't ever see him when I went to the fair. But it's been years since I last went. He must be new"

I shook my head. "He looked like he'd been there a long time"

"Poor boy" my brother repeated, shaking his head sadly, “the oddities and animals I can condone, mostly because the elders there wish to do that for a living, but a child... That’s inhumane! It’s wrong. Brother I would not have sent you there had I known what it had become.”

We sat talking for a while longer before we lapsed into silence again. After ten minutes, I found I could contain my thoughts no longer.

"Earl, we have to save him!"

"Us‽ Little brother you are quite mad! We can't do a thing like that!"

"But we must!"

"I won't have a part in this Nadir, I'm sorry but it is too risky. I feel the upmost sympathy for the child but that doesn’t mean we risk or lives for him. Do you not realise what could happen to us if we were caught with a carnival freak?"

I stood up in anger and stormed out of the room.

"He’s not a freak!" I yelled "He’s a boy like me and I will save him!"

I heard his protests but they fell on deaf ears as I went up to my room and waited until it was dark.

 

In all those years, I'd never disobeyed my mother. Of course, I'd committed the usual mischiefs of a normal child, stealing perhaps a biscuit from the jar or putting a harmless spider in my sisters scarf, but I would never have considered disobeying her on a level such as this one. As night fell over Persia, spreading its cool, dark blanket of stars and pale light of the moon over the city, I barred my bedroom door and opened my window. I'd always been a keen climber as a child, (a skill I still possess to this day, though it is perhaps not as refined as it once had been) so I slipped with ease out of my window and down the front of the house. Then, I started to run towards the city. However, my first problem arose when I reached it. Unlike the quiet town that me and my family lived in that usually fell into darkened silence by night, the city was quite the opposite. If anything, it was more alive.

It was a beautiful chaos. There were masses of crowds on foot, milling about and filling practically the entire street, it was a miracle that anyone could move as they were so tightly packed together. Men on horseback and carriages pushed slowly though the massing throng of people along with carts laden with jars and boxes of various goods. I was amazed to see this much activity so late in the day and I quickly became lost in the mob of people and was pushed this way and that by the 'Giants' as I saw them. I was not only engulfed in the mass of legs and bodies of the crowd, but also the sweet smells of spices and herbs that drifted over from the stalls that were scattered about the street. Cries from sellers and the general hubbub of the street filled my ears. All of a sudden, my fear dawned on me and I suddenly felt very small amongst all these sights and sounds of the brightly lit and colourful city; though despite all its colour, it couldn't have been darker for me. I started to panic and cry for my mother though my cries were lost amongst the clamour of the crowd.

No longer was I pushed about by their unruly nature though, I began to weave and snake though them with sudden determination, retracing my steps as best I could from earlier that day. I don't know quite how long it took me, but I eventually reached the encampment. It was in darkness, the only sounds were the baying of the animals and the distant murmur of the city that I'd left behind me. I snuck inside under the cover of darkness and made my way to the cage. Along the way though I was startled by a lion as it bared its teeth at me and roared, jumping up against the bars of its cage. I continued on and eventually made it. I climbed up onto the side and knocked quietly on one of the bars.

"Hello?"

I said in a loud whisper. He seemed to shrink away from the noise.

"I've come to get you out of here."

He didn't seem the least bit excited at the prospect. Then it suddenly dawned on me that he might not understand Persian, so I asked softly:

"Can you understand me?"

He nodded. It was the first movement he'd made in recognition to me, other than shrinking away.

"Don't you want to get out of here?"

He made no movement nor sound.

"You're scared is that it? Look, I won't hurt you. Why would I? We're the same are we not?"

"No." He said at length, "we are far from being alike; in any way.” His voice was very faint and trembling but he was speaking to me in perfect and unfaltering Persian. He sounded a lot older than he looked, which was perhaps a few years younger than me, but it was difficult to tell. His words were more refined and mature and also possessed an almost adult sound to his speech. I, however, persisted, stupidly not sensing the boys ominous and broken tone.

"Of course we are! Don't be foolish!”

He went back into silence again. It only made me persist and beg him more. I had hoped that he'd eventually give in but he didn't; though I, for the life of me, couldn't understand why. I know now, however. Even if he did escape, he'd be hunted down by the monsters of the fair again; as long as they were alive and not imprisoned, he could never truly be free. I, of course, didn't understand that. Not then. I barely knew him, I didn't know what his name was, how he'd ended up here, or even what he looked like. I sighed, frustrated, beginning to get quite angry with him at this point.

"I disobeyed my mother, I snuck out of my house and ran all the way to the city, I was nearly trampled to death and lost in there! And then, when I get here, after all my attempts, you refuse to let me save you! Why?"

I heard him sigh a little, it was very quiet but that was his only sound. He made no moment from that huddled up position in the corner of the cage, so I moved around the outside until I was stood in front of him. He kept his head down, his arms were wrapped around his knees which were brought up beneath his chin, I still couldn't really see him properly, partially because of the ill light and partly because he was hiding his face from my view. I reached a hand though the bars and tapped him, he leapt away as if my touch were red hot. I realised that he was stone cold, that much was unsurprising as he was wearing next to nothing sitting outside in the chill air. But I also jumped slightly, for it was as if I'd simply touched his bone rather than his leg as I'd intended, that was how thin he was. Surely he'd die if he spent any longer out here! How he hadn't perished already was a mystery to me. My pity only grew for him then, what had this poor boy done to deserve to be locked up in a cage? I kept my hand outstretched to him.

"Please don't be afraid.”

He moved a little but got no closer to me.

"Don't hide."

Nothing. I put my hand back down at my side but continued to look at him.

"I'll be your friend."

I said gently, using childish persuasion but oddly enough, that got me a reaction.

"My what?"

He sounded utterly perplexed at the prospect, or perhaps he didn’t understand the word.

"Your friend."

The word sounded foreign as he repeated it: "My friend...?"

Then it dawned on me, "you've never had a friend... Have you?"

"No.”

"Why?"

"People don't like me" came his simple reply. That adult manner and air about his words had left him now, he just sounded like the frightened child that he really was.

"I'm not like others. It's why I'm in here. Why I'm stared at and beaten. Why most people want me dead, I just wish they’d do it. Why they think I am the son of Lucifer."

I just looked at him sadly for a while longer before I asked gently again.

"Why?" It felt as though it was all I could ask. He didn't immediately reply to me and I felt as though he never would.

"My face.” He whispered so quietly that I struggled to comprehend his words at first. I frowned slightly.

"What do you mean?"

"I... I don't look like you. I don't look human, I’m not one."

"Show me."

"No. You'll run away, or hit me, o-"

"I won't. I promise I won't. Please. I want to understand."

After a lengthy amount of time, he very slowly and nervously raised his head and looked at me, face to face.

When a child has a nightmare, it's usually of rather foolish and unrealistic subjects that are conjured up in the imagination. Things like monsters, dark shapes or perhaps being chased by something you never see, but they weren't ever _true_ nightmares. No, they weren't ones that I should've found out about when I was at least ten years older than I was then. But what I saw... How do I describe it? It was like looking at a corpse. I feel awful writing these words but it was like looking at a living corpse. I was afraid, I'll admit to that, I was only ten at the time after all. I stumbled and fell backwards onto the ground, cupping a hand over my mouth to stifle the scream that was threatening to sound. I must've gone pale as he went slightly wide eyed, but I could see the hurt in them. He then swiftly put his head back down and hugged his knees, I knew I wouldn't get another word out of him after my despicable actions and betrayal of his trust. But as I got shakily to my feet again, I didn't turn and run in another direction that would take me far away from that fair and him, but I instead, I walked back over to the cage.

"I'm sorry." I said quietly in a feeble attempt to rectify my reaction.

He still didn't say anything to me, I can't blame him.

"I hadn't expected- I mean-" I sighed, "I’m not scared. You made me jump but that was all. I won't run away from here, or from you."

"Why?" I was surprised to hear his timid voice reply from beneath the cover of his arms.

"Why would I run? That's the real question. I came here to save you not to run away from you."

"You can't save me... They'll chase you too and then you might end up like me. Just go home before you're caught."

I knew I wouldn't be able to persuade him otherwise. Instead I just held my hand out to him through the bars of the cage.

"My name is Nadir."

He lifted his head up again but I didn't recoil this time around, I stood my ground, still with my hand out held to him. He looked at it with confusion. I whispered helpfully:

"You take it and say your name."

He moved slightly and very tentatively did so and I noticed his hand was very different to my own. Not only was it stone cold, but it was basically made up of nothing more than bones and veins under a very thin stretch of skin. It was awfully strange, having these bones digging into my flesh, though at the same time, I think we both accepted this base of a friendship that we had begun to lay the foundations of that night.

“What is your name then?”

"I have no name.” He replied simply, as if it were obvious.

"Well 'Mister No Name', it's a pleasure to meet you."

I shook his hand and I'm not entirely sure of it, but I think he smiled a little, it was rather hard to tell. I took my hand back and rifled in my pocket for a moment before I took out a little brown paper bag and passed it though to him.

"What is this?”

"It’s a sweet. You eat them."

"I do know what confectionary is you know!"

He snapped with sudden indigence that made me feel very guilty for undermining his intelligence and so I said hurriedly, "Oh sorry! I-it's just you didn't know what a handshake was so I just assumed..."

"It's alright." He was silent for a moment after that as he stared at the bag, it looked as though he was trying to say something. And, after a while, he eventually said two words:

"Thank you." It didn't sound like those were words he used much, if at all. I simply smiled.

"Can I come and see you again?" I asked hopefully. _(Why exactly I asked him this, I still don't know.)_

"Again? You- you want to see _me_ again?"

"Of course! We're friends aren't we?"

"I suppose?”

"Well then. I'll come back tomorrow."

I jumped back down, calling, "Bye Mister-No-Name"

"Goodbye... Nadir.”

I smiled again and then left, heading back home.

About an hour later, I was climbing back up into my room. Luckily, it seemed no one had noticed my absence so I quickly kicked my shoes off, got into my nightshirt and then into bed. I smiled to myself. Odd though it was, I couldn't wait to see him again.

 

The next day couldn't pass quickly enough for me, I planned to leave again at night time when the rest of the house was asleep. But I had to wait. The hours crawled by and I paced about the house in eager anticipation, my mother asked me what was on my mind countless times and if I was quite alright.

"You're acting quite oddly Nadir" She remarked, though I assured her that nothing was wrong and settled down with a book to pass the afternoon away. Later, we were all sat around the table having dinner. I ate it quickly and announced that I was going to bed. The rest of my family looked at me, shocked.

"Are you alright?" My mother asked, rising from her seat and walking over to me, putting a cool hand to my forehead. I took it off and said that I was fine, just a little tired. She accepted my white lie and took me up to bed. I changed and got under the covers, she kissed my head and bid me a goodnight before she left my room, taking the lantern with her. I laid there for a while before I shot up, got changed again and slipped out of my window. I made the trip back to the fair and snuck inside once again. I ran up to his cage and jumped up.

"Hello!" I smiled, my voice projecting a little louder than I had anticipated.

He jumped and instinctively recoiled from the noise before he looked back and saw it was me, hissing "Hush! Do you want to get caught?”

"Sorry" I whispered, "I've just been really looking forward to seeing you again."

He looked around, frowning as he spoke "you were looking forward to seeing _me_ again?"

"Yes.”

"Quite frankly I didn’t anticipate a return from you.”

"Why wouldn't I come back? You're my friend, aren’t you?"

He shrugged.

"Here, I've got you something. It doesn't look like you eat much so I've brought you some food."

I passed the pot though the bars to him. He held it between his hands for a moment, using it as a using it as a small source of heat to give a little warmth to his frail form, before he removed the lid and the sweet smell of spices and herbs wafted though the air. He tentatively dipped a finger into it, and before I had a chance to say 'careful, it's hot,' he'd scolded himself. I waited for the cry of pain followed by tears and wailing but there was nothing. Not even a slight whimper. He just quickly moved his hand away and curled his other fingers around his burnt one to ease the pain.

"Are you alright?" I asked him, concerned but amazed that he hadn't made a single sound. He merely nodded and blew into the pot to cool it.

A while later, he tried again and this time, didn't burn himself. He put his finger into his mouth and I watched his semblance of a face become the most animated thing I’d ever seen as he tasted it. It was as if he had never had food in his life, his eyes became wide and stared at nothing in particular in awestruck fascination and his malformed lips shook and parted slightly as if to say something but he didn’t say a word. I saw him swallow a few times as if he was attempting to get his vocal chords to work again, and his breaths became a little more rapid. Just as I expected him to say something, he reached back in hungrily and hurriedly picked out the few pieces of vegetable, eating them first. He then wasted no time at all in taking the pot between his skeletal hands and bringing it up to his lips, gulping down the sauce greedily. I just watched in slight shock as he consumed the meal in little under a minute with animalistic hunger and savagery. When he was done, he passed the spotless pot back to me, there was no trace of there ever having been food in it at all other than the faint smell of the sauce. I found myself staring at him in disbelief as I reached out to take it.

"When was the last time you ate?"

He shrugged a little.

In my shock at this I forgot about the pot  I had meant to take back and it slipped from my hands, shattering loudly as it smashed against the wooden block below that held the carriage in place.  Unfortunately, the noise didn’t go unnoticed as I heard a distant voice and the then the clomping of heavy boots as they walked over. He looked around at me, his small form completely tensed up and awash with terror.

"Run!"

"But-"

"Don’t argue! Go!"

I looked at him to a second longer before I fled. Though I stopped just outside the encampment, waiting for my chance to go back in and see him again. A minute later, I heard the gruff voice of a man, talking angrily in a foreign language, no doubt to my friend. I could only just distinguish his faint and obviously frightened replies though they too were in a foreign language that I couldn't translate. Though what I heard next didn't need to be translated. A crack of a whip and the an utterly blood chilling scream of agony filled the air, making the late night birds all take flight in a clapping of feathered wings and fly far away from the camp as they sensed the danger it held, unlike me. Silence followed. Horrible, horrible silence that was so unbearable that I could've screamed in protest. But I didn't.

I waited a long time before I crept back into the camp and up to the cage again. I found him lying in a heap amongst the scattered hay and filth of the floor of the cage, shaking, his breathing ragged and uneven. I looked on in the dim light and saw the horrifying deep gash that the stroke of the whip had dealt to him. Blood was slowly trickling down his scarred and bony back and dripping onto the wooden planks of his rotten cell as I now properly realised that it was. I looked at everything in a new, terrifying light then for I saw the true horror of what this young boy was living in. Hay was scattered in patches across the dirty and rotting wooden planks that were stained with blood, excrement and other such things. As well as that, the planks had long, numerous scratches in them, probably of his own doing in a desperate and futile attempt to escape. Rope, that was also stained black with filth and dirt, hung from the bars of the cage and I realised from the scars and marks around his wrists, they'd been used to tie him up to the sides of the cage when he didn't show his face. So that dirt was probably blood as well...

I hadn't noticed I'd started to weep silently as the real shock and horror hit me. I now knew that I wanted nothing more than to save him, no matter what he said or how much he protested, I'd save him. But I knew it couldn't be that night, he was in no state to walk, let alone actually speak any more to me, so I left without another word and went tearfully back to my house again. I was lucky not to get caught for a second night in a row and I fell into a troubled and nightmare filled sleep.

When I awoke the following day, I had it all worked out. I'd get the keys from the man who I guessed had to be in the big tent near the entrance. Then, after I'd stolen the keys without being noticed, I'd go back and unlock the cage door and go in and help him out. Then I'd take him back home with me and I'd keep him in my room and make my brother help me look after him. From there onwards, I had no plan, but I was sure Earl would come up with something. So, as night fell and I was put to bed again, I waited for the others to all fall asleep before I slipped my clothes back on and climbed out of the window and down to the ground, an action that was, by then, very easy for me to do,  and headed for the fair again. I had every confidence that my plan would work. I'd spent the whole day going over every possibility of something going wrong and figuring out a way to overcome it. My plan was faultless, or so I thought.

For there was one thing I hadn't accounted for. The fair no longer being there.

All that remained of the encampment were the smouldering remains of the campfire and the disturbed earth where people had walked over it and warn it down into pathways. I walked over to where his cage should have been and looked off into the distance where the tracks of the carriages wheels stretched away as far as my eye could see before they disappeared off into the horizon. I stared off into the vast expanse of sand and dust that was lit in the ghostly light of the moon.  He was gone. And I knew then that I'd ever see him again.  Just like those ghostly, pale white patches of moonlight that steamed down in hazy, transparent beams from the heavens above, he would become the ghost of my childhood. The boy I could never forget. My phantom friend.


	3. A Short Lived Childhood

A touching opening to this... Novel I suppose? What else could I call this? A journal, perhaps a diary of sorts? No, this is no diary. It's a tale of woe and misfortune, and certainly not a recollection of our eating habits or daily activities. But I digress.

Firstly, I must commend you, Nadir, my friend, for actually managing to create a sense of pity and compassion for me, something I have never had the fortune to gain from many people. First impressions do count as they say, but they can easily be destroyed, which, I'm afraid, is what I'm no doubt about to do. Though I'm not often one for first impressions; for me, they usually end the same way. The person either screams, freezes, stares or even, in some rare instances, faints. Yes, dear reader, if you had not yet guessed, I'm the boy that Nadir was describing, The Devil’s Child.

I am not a man who is as open to divulge in my past as he is, which is why I'm reluctant to lend my hand in writing this. However, I'm a man of my word as you will come to learn, and I remain indebted to him for a plethora of instances throughout my life, so if by writing this I am repaying some of my debts towards him, so be it. I will indulge myself with this as much as I possibly can. Without further ado, I'd best continue.

 

Throughout my life, dates have been a mystery to me. I can distinguish the seasons, perhaps even the months; not a difficult task, any child is capable of doing so, but leading a life such as mine, dates hold little meaning. Therefore, age is somewhat meaningless too. What I am trying to say in perhaps one of the most convoluted ways possible, is that I do not know the date of my birth, though I think it’s best to forget, as others do, that the day ever happened. It’s best to believe that I died or ceased to exist to begin with, which would also be beneficial to me.

Alas, I’m a difficult man to forget, anyone who has lived but a day in my cursed presence would tell you that, and I am certain that if given the choice, they would gladly forget my existence. Most deny it, put it down to a nightmare, or perhaps a misjudgement of the eye, but even entering a state of denial does little to clear the mind of the lasting trauma I so often inflict upon the unfortunate souls I cross paths with. Many therefore would be perfectly content in a world in which I did not exist, myself included, but the first to truly suffer was my mother.

Often when I overstepped the line of her patience or temper, she would make her contempt of me incredibly clear. Something I found that would truly irk her were my persistent demands to be allowed outside. I used to watch children running about in the square outside the cottage, playing with their various wooden toys. On particularly windy days I would sit for hours in the window watching as they ran about flying their kites which I would watch dance their lazy waltz’s in the air, diving and twisting about, turning circles around their partners, their strings becoming entwined at times causing them to plummet and then soar upwards again moments later, now free. But they, like me, were never truly free, for they had strings tying them down, preventing them from flying free into the blue expanse of sky that awaited above them.

Whilst they at least had the fresh air and natural world surrounding them, I had only four walls and musky, stale air that hadn’t been blessed with an open window for many years. Therefore, and quite rightfully, I would beg my mother to let me out to play with the other children I would watch, and when begging didn’t work, I began to demand, when that proved futile, ‘accidents’ would begin to happen.

A plate may ‘accidentally’ fall from the countertop, a shoe might make its way mysteriously into the middle of a floor causing my mother more than a few twisted ankles and falls. Perhaps a door might lock for a few hours, or her prized piece of crochet would go missing, sometimes onto the fire blazing in the hearth... But what else was I expected to do? I had no toys to play with after I had dissected my others to figure out how they worked, and even though I put them back to the way they were before, my mother refused to buy me anything else, and would keep antiques and more expensive items out of my reach for fear of them landing into my incessantly curious hands.

So when I was refused the opportunity to go outside to play with the other children, and my pestering wouldn’t stop, she would constantly go back to one story and one alone that would never fail to silence me.

“How the midwife screamed when she first saw you” she would say, “she thought you to be dead when she held you, but then you started to cry and she uttered the Lord’s Prayer under her breath. After all the pain you put me through, I wanted to see my baby, but once she handed you to me, I wished she hadn’t. She ran to Pastor Claude, begging him to bless the child she had just delivered. Once he arrived, he gave a similar reaction to the midwife, drawing a cross over himself and clutching at the one he wore around his neck. I remember seeing his face pale to a similar colour as the moon above that night. He refused to bless you, refused to approach, telling me that the child I held was not truly mine, that he was Lucifer’s child. 'This child was not sent to you from Heaven' he told me, 'he can only come from the world below.' The midwife doubted you would last even a month, sadly you outlived all our expectations and you’re still here. Had you died that night, the world would have been a better place, and if you go out there now, you will be killed, the world just doesn’t accept beasts like you. You don’t want to die do you?”

To this I tended to shake my head, back then I didn’t want death, I did not crave it for I still had a life I envisioned myself living in, I had a passion. That life and light has long since been doused and left to die, but ack then, it could not have burned brighter. Even though the thought of death frightened me, it wouldn’t stop the questions.

“Why will I die Mama?” I would ask innocently, not understanding just how cruel the world beyond my door could be.

She would give a tired look that one might give a child who is asking such an obvious question that to anyone else, would not need answering. “You’re not like them. They will see you the same way the Pastor did, they will want you dead. You will make them sad.”

“But I don’t want to make people sad Mama, I want to play and smile, I want to fly a kite and laugh at the way it dances in the air.”

“Don’t you understand?!” She shouted.

Her temper would snap so quickly, and I often wondered if she would have treated a normal child in the same manner, if that were the case, she was never suited to be a mother.

"You’re not meant for this world, you’re not meant to laugh and play and be happy, you’re meant to be in Hell with your father!”

She would then look at me but would soon turn her head away, unable to stand the sight of my twisted face looking back at her with wide eyes that had tears pooling in them. Her own eyes would then fill with salty tears and she would bury her head in her pinafore to stop them, or at the very least to muffle her sobs as she stormed from the room and left for the kitchen.

I too would cry and try to find a small haven in the cottage where I could be in peace, alone with my thoughts and feelings, where I could try to forget the things my mother told me, things no true mother would tell their child, but I couldn’t run and hide from the truth, for I did understand her words, I understood completely. I simply did not want to believe them, I didn’t want to believe that I couldn’t be like others, that they wouldn’t accept me and would only want me dead.

 

Now, when I look back on things, I wonder what she meant by father. To this day I don’t know who he actually was. In hazy, dark days I have allowed myself to imagine what he was like. I’ve wondered from time to time if perhaps we shared vague similarities, that if I had been born with a normal face, we may have looked alike. I’ve often thought that perhaps I was a mistake, the result of a night of passion between two young and very foolish lovers, or perhaps, which is equally as likely, my father left after he discovered that my mother was with child. That being said, I have carried a pocket watch with me throughout my life with the initials L.D. engraved on the lid, which I have always assumed was my fathers, for they are not the initials of anyone I know, not my grandfather’s even though I’ve never met him. The 'D' wasn’t my mother’s last initial either. 

I sit here now with it upon my desk, its soft, methodical ticking serving as a calming bit of ambience, along with the crackle of the hearth, which could use an additional log or two. The watch was once golden in colour, but it has since been reduced to a dulled colour in places where it has been constantly handled. In fact, the initials are practically non-existent nowadays, as I've a habit of tracing them when I become lost in thought, which has worn them away significantly through the years. How foolish to keep such a trinket; what meaning does it hold to me? Yet I have worn it around my neck or kept it concealed on my person throughout my worldly travels, though rarely do I use it to keep time. I don't take myself to be the sort to be sentimental, but this suggests otherwise. All for the father I never knew.

I also contemplate whether my mother would have wanted my father in Hell if she kept his pocket watch and a few of his possessions. Surely such items would have been sold in the financial hardships we faced through the few years I lived with her. Who then could she be referring to other than Lucifer himself? Ironically, this insult causes me smile even to this day.

Most would take it as the intentional insult that it is, but to me it’s the opposite, for to be the son of an angel to me sounds like an honour. If that were so I would be a being of great power and grace, and in many ways it could explain where my remarkable skills come from, some of which are said to be feats only a devil could accomplish. Ah, but if that were so, I would have to believe that angels and heaven and God existed, I do not. These are matters for another time.

As I was not allowed to step foot outside of my prison as I came to see it, I had to find other means of amusing myself. My mother kept a large collection of books on just about everything upon a large shelf that sat adjacent to the door to the kitchen. On days she spent going out to the market or running errands to earn her keep, I would take a small stack and sit to read them. I taught myself to read and write, as my mother refused to teach me, and I similarly taught myself new languages such as English, Latin, Italian and German to name a few.

I read about far away lands that I dreamt of visiting, places such as Egypt with its colossal pyramids, Venice with all its colour and streets of water and even Paris itself which I learnt was a days ride from my town. I then came across books of architecture, which I found absolutely fascinating but also odd for my mother to own. Again I now wonder if it had belonged to my father, perhaps it was a hint at his interests or employment, I’ll never know. And then, once I’d devoured every book in the house, I decided to ask for more.

 

My mother, aside from her initial shock and outrage at learning this, eventually agreed to buy me books, seeing them as a harmless distraction from my otherwise persistent begging to be let out of the house. What she didn’t realise was that she would be giving me more knowledge of that world I so longed to see with my own eyes, she was allowing me to learn new languages and skills.

I had found I was an incredibly intelligent child for I learned things at a rate I am now certain is not normal, I still boast the skill to this day, and it has saved my life more than a few times. My mother bought me books of art, some of the classic fictitious novels which were intended for readers far older than myself at the time, she also bought me books of magic, illusions, and also music, which were perhaps two of her biggest mistakes, for little did either of us know then that they would become to of my greatest passions, music especially. At times during my life, it was the only thing keeping me alive, the only thing that gave me the will to go on and not accept my fate, it kept me fighting, breathing, surviving, and I am forever thankful for it, it is the only thing I can bring myself to thank my mother for.

The day I tried to talk to my mother about music and how much I had learnt, she cried. I believe she was scared of me and my ability to learn, but she was the one who locked me inside and kept my constantly active mind starved of any new activity, so she only had herself to blame. Still I asked her to buy me a piano, and when that failed I settled my sights upon a violin. I had given up asking to go outside, but I would never give up asking, begging and pleading my mother to buy me this simple instrument that I so craved. And when she refused, the tricks I greeted her with were not my usual ones.

I, by then, had mastered the skill of ventriloquism, and I used my disembodied voice to play on her weaknesses, to break her down emotionally until she could no longer refuse me my demands. I was incredibly satisfied with this new power I found I had, and though I used it only to gain the upper hand over my mother and get her to give in to my demands, I came to find that this skill was perhaps the second most valuable one I was to learn at that tender age.

The first time my hands touched the carefully polished wood of that violin was a moment I will never forget. Indeed it may have been a poor quality instrument compared to the finer ones I now possess, but to me it holds more value than any price one could lay upon it. It was my saviour in many ways as it opened up the grand golden gates of music to me, allowing me to step foot into that world which is ruled by passion and raw emotion, a world of pure elation that I could slip into and leave behind my mortal bonds that shackled me to the earth I loathed. It took me beyond those musty four walls, beyond any bars or boundaries that surrounded me in later life, either physical or mental.

My skill upon the violin progressed at an incredibly accelerated rate, and before I had reached roughly half a decade in age, I was said to be playing with more skill than some of the most accomplished violinists in not only France, but the world.

Now of course my mother did not pay me such compliments, but my playing could be heard through the walls by those who passed outside and that is what they would tell my mother should she meet any of them at the market. Our village was very small and word often spread quickly as I found later on. Sometimes I would stand in the window and watch their reactions to my music, if I was not lost in it myself that was.

I would see them stop and look around them for the source of the music, their faces would take on an expression of pure awe and they would stand mesmerised for a time, simply listening to the muffled notes that I made the strings of my violin sing. It wouldn’t take them long to find out that I was the one playing, they knew my mother had a child but not many knew who I was or, more importantly, what I looked like.

I also found that my mother had a musical background, which is why my talents didn’t come as a surprise to many. I was always delighted when a kindly member of my small audience would come to the door to complement my playing. Often they would inquire who was behind it but my mother would never answer and would make certain that I remained locked upstairs where I couldn’t run down and show myself as she politely opened the door to take those compliments for me. Of course she never passed them on, even though she promised she would.

Then, she would try to take the violin from me but I learnt to hide it well, and she never was able to find it. I loved watching her face slowly turn to a burning red in her anger as she would turn my small room upside down in an attempt to search for my precious instrument, though it was always in vain. She would often smack me or hit me with whatever came to hand, but it was never enough to leave any lasting scar, just perhaps the odd bruise or red irritation on the skin. That was until the day she made her second mistake.

Yet again, I was stood at my bedroom window, violin held under the crook of my chin as I played for my audience. I would envision myself stood upon a stage in one of the magnificent opera houses I had seen pictured in the books I had read as I played with my eyes closed. My mother was out at the market and so I played more vigorously and loudly than usual, not needing to see the notation of the piece I was performing.

With my eyes closed, I transported myself to that imaginary stage, my audience watching in awestruck silence. That was until my mothers voice penetrated my mind and I opened my eyes to see her hurrying down the path that lead to our front door. A few people followed her from the gate inquiring about my playing and asking to see who it was that played so beautifully. I saw my opportunity and abandoned my violin upon my mattress on the floor, opening my door and running down the stairs as the front door opened.

“Mama!” I cried, beaming ear to ear, “did you hear what they said? They want to meet me Mama! They like me!”

My mother’s face became pale, and her following cries to stop me came too late as I had already passed her and was hurrying outside to meet my audience. My mother always dressed me very smartly, I think she wished to make up for my ghastly natural looks with smart clothes that made me at least bearable to look at for a few moments.

The first piece of clothing she had ever gifted to me was a rag to cover my face, serving as a rudimentary mask, but I apparently hated it. That habit didn’t change; a few years later she had made me a proper mask, but I didn’t take to that one either and I often discarded it or threw it onto the fire in some of my worst fits of anger. 

I also relished in making her uncomfortable as I grew older and my features developed and became twice as horrific with every passing year. I liked watching her squirm at the sight of me, particularly when she had angered me, it was my revenge in an odd way. This time however, I had been alone in the house and had long since discarded the mask my mother had tied around my head before she left. So off I went, running outside to greet those who had gathered to find out the identity of this virtuosic violinist.

 

None of them had expected to see a child run outside, and I remember a woman looking to my mother and saying with a shocked laugh:

“You have a son? Dear lord Amélie, surely you cannot have hidden him away all this time?”

Then another inquired: “He can’t have the one playing the violin! He is so young, surely it can’t be so?”

“Yes Madame, it was I” I responded proudly, smiling up at her.

She then looked down at me and her face is one that oddly enough still haunts me. Actually, it isn’t so much her expression as her scream that stays in my nightmares to this day. Her look of shocked admiration turned to one of pure horror. Her eyes stayed fixed onto me but I could tell she didn’t want to look at me, she simply couldn’t turn away. In fact, her entire form was frozen rigid, her feet planted as firmly in the ground as the old oak tree that had stood in our garden against all manner of fierce storms. But then she began to sway and then, without warning, she fell, collapsing into the arms of her husband. The other ladies all let out a unanimous shriek and began to fan her to bring her out of her unconscious state.

But then they saw me stood there in pained confusion, staring the woman who had screamed and fallen unconscious and they too gave their own rendition of the first woman’s scream and became unsteady themselves. My mother then ran out and took my arm in her iron grip, dragging me off my feet for a few seconds and back inside. She then slammed the door behind me and began storming upstairs, still with my arm in her unrelenting tight grip.

“Where is it?!” She shouted before she had even reached my room, “you will tell me where it is! I am putting this to end once and for all! I’ve kept you hidden all these years, now look what you’ve gone and done! You’ve ruined us! You’ve ruined our lives! I’ll never be able to leave this house again once word spreads of you!”

I was whimpering in her grip, afraid of what she was going to do.

“I’m sorry, Mama. I’m sorry. I wanted to make them happy.” I told her, my voice wavering as my tears threatened to appear. It wasn’t long before they began to fall as my mother picked up my treasured violin in her other hand and tossed me back towards my mattress.

“I told you to stop doing this didn’t I? I told you!”

She put her other hand on the neck and began to apply pressure. I heard the wood begin to whine in protest and I began to cry and wail myself as if the violin’s pain was my own. She continued to push and the pleas of the strained wood and my own became one until finally I heard the snap I had been dreading. My heart plummeted and I screamed with a voice that should not have belonged to such a young child. It was not that of a child who had misbehaved and was crying because of its punishment, it was a scream of pure grief and then unbridled rage.

It took over me completely and the next few seconds are a blurred memory to me, but I remember my mother screaming, and I remember being stood at the top of the stairs. She was fighting to get me off her, and though I was only a small child, I was fuelled by pure rage and adrenaline that was giving me more than enough strength to give me a brief upper hand against an adult. Then, in an unexpected motion, she lifted her arm and pushed me so harshly that I lost my balance and toppled backwards.

I remember feeling the wood of the first step hitting my back, then hitting my head against the first two bannisters, then landing upon my arm as my head careered over the rest of my body which then promptly hit the following eleven stairs until I landed in a heap at the bottom. I couldn’t move, my ears were ringing and my vision had already become hazy. I could feel immense pain in my entire body and yet I could feel nothing at all. I heard my mother but couldn’t distinguish her words. The haze then darkened and took over my vision completely as I fell unconscious.

 

I have little memory of the days following that incident, and I had no concept of time either. The first thing I remember is laying on the divan, a thin blanket over me and a cushion behind my pounding head. The room around me took longer than usual to come into focus and in fact, I couldn’t keep my eyes open for very long as pain from several places would flare up and I would have to close my eyes as they filled with tears. The pain was what caused me to drift in and out of consciousness over the days that followed, and I was certain my mother would never call a Doctor to help me.

I rarely became unwell and when I did, she would simply give me a little laudanum or shark liver oil, neither of which I found pleasant but they did soothe me somewhat. It seemed she had been trying the same technique this time but it did very little for me as my injuries were too severe. I don’t remember seeing her whenever I woke and now I wonder if she had been avoiding me. Did she feel guilt? I think she did; but it was selfish guilt, I doubted she felt remorse for hurting me. She worried of what others would think of her if word got out that she had pushed her son, whom she had locked within her house for many years, down the stairs. It was why she could never carry out a threat to kill me or ever do me serious harm; if it wasn’t for her own sanity and pride, she would have killed me long before that incident, I'm certain of it. With my life on the line, it seemed all she cared about was what others would think of her.

When she came in to feed me, she would only leave the food by my side whilst I slept, she didn’t sit by me and comfort me, she didn’t soothe my pain or tears, she never came to my soft calls for her. Even after everything she had done, I wanted her beside me, I needed someone to help ease my pain, to make it go away like mothers were meant to be able to do. But she never came, and she never called a Doctor. I have no idea how long I was left laying on the divan for, but I was well aware that I had more than a few broken bones because I couldn’t move myself to get up.

I judged the days passing by the light of the sun in the hallway as she had closed all the curtains in the sitting room so that no one could look inside and see me. I would also judge it on my mother’s daily routine which I quickly learnt by the sound of her movements. She would spend an hour in the kitchen, then she would move to the dining room, then the bathroom. She would then go up the stairs, hesitating slightly on the second step each time before she would walk up the next eleven and go into her room where she would stay for a few hours, pacing or sleeping. She would return downstairs after her hours spent upstairs and cook. After, she would bathe before finally returning to bed.

Only when I was asleep would she come in to give me laudanum or cod liver oil, I would only know by the foul taste of it in my mouth. Occasionally, she would leave me some food which I found incredibly difficult to eat as one of my arms was broken badly, there was no doubt of it. I would have to take the bowl or plate with my broken arm, and eat with my good one. This went on for a considerable amount of time before one day I woke to a new voice in the house.

 

It was that of a mans and it was close to me. Though I woke mid way though a conversation, so I kept my eyes closed to listen to it. Besides, I didn’t want to scare the man like I did that women, so I stayed perfectly still, keeping up the act that I was asleep. It wasn’t a young voice, it was harsh and had been damaged in some ways, likely through smoking too many cigars as that’s what his breath smelt of.

“It would certainly be profitable” the mans voice was saying thoughtfully, he couldn’t have been far from me as I could feel and smell his breath against my neck.

“You would have to have him treated but I’m sure he’d be of value to you” my mother replied, “he’s incredibly talented and he learns quickly, quicker than any child I ever knew.”

“Does he indeed? And what skills does he know?” the man replied again, I was unsure if it but I thought I could detect some sarcasm in his tone, or at the very least disbelief. I guessed that he was a man who was used to hearing this phrase and was used to being fooled or disappointed when it proved not to be true.

“Well he knows many different languages and can speak and write in them fluently, he’s capable of the most incredible illusions and tricks, he loves ventriloquism and he’s very good at it too. And then there’s his music.” Here she hesitated, and I could tell she said this next part though grit teeth, “I’ve never heard such a gifted violinist in all my life.”

The man’s tone remained on the cusp of sarcasm as he replied, clearly he wasn’t quite convinced. I couldn’t blame him, though what my mother said was true, it was difficult to believe that a child as young and broken, let alone as severely deformed as the one he saw before him was capable of any of it.

“Is that so? And just how old is he?”

“Oh he hasn’t yet turned ten Monsieur, but don’t let his young age fool you, he may look like a child but in every other account he is anything but! He has the mind of a man four times his age, he’s clever Monsieur, very clever.”

The man was quiet for a while. He seemed to be contemplating everything she had just told him. I felt his hand on my arm and was thankful he hadn’t touched my broken one as that would have put an end to my act. He took my hand and inspected my fingers which had the tell-tale callus’s any musician who plays the stings bares.

He then turned my head to face him and I had to do everything I could not to turn it away from him; those women had shown me how people reacted to me and I didn’t want to hear it again, but no scream came. Instead he felt my face, pressing against the bone of the sockets that caused my eyes to be set back in my head and shrouded with darkness. He felt my lips, or what little I had of them, I felt a finger brush against my teeth and then a thumb running over the part where my nose should have been. Seemingly satisfied, I heard him stand and say: “I’ll take him from your hands for fifty francs.”

“Fifty?!” My mother exclaimed, she obviously was not expecting this price. I wasn’t sure how much a Doctor would cost but fifty francs seemed a little extortionate. What my mother then said confused me, “surly he is worth more than that! How often do you come across a freak like him? Let alone one with a brain and skills like his!”

The silence that followed told me the man was reconsidering his offer, and it left me feeling confused and betrayed. A freak? My mother had called me many things, but never in the presence of others. She was always afraid of what they would say about her if they heard her talking of her child in that way. So why was this man different? And why was I worth money? I thought it was her job to pay the Doctor, not the other way around.

“Eighty is my final offer.” He said with confidence that suggested an end to the conversation.

My mother sighed heavily and reluctantly but I heard her mutter an agreement. I then heard the chink of coins being exchanged and unexpectedly felt the blankets tighten around me. That caused me to cry as my leg was moved, bringing an end to my act.

“Hush now” I heard the man say, “we can’t have you screaming now can we?”

I then felt something being poured into my mouth and tasted something that wasn’t any medicine I'd ever had before. Shortly after, I felt myself drifting off into a deep sleep.


	4. The Devil's Child

When I next awoke, I was aware that I was moving. I could hear horses and the regular tread of their hooves against the earth. I heard the creak of wood and the flapping of canvas around me as it caught in the light breeze. A breeze. That was an odd sensation, I thought, and the smells around me were new, not the familiar musty ones of the house. Horses too, I had heard them and seen them, but I’d never been this close to one before. At length I slowly opened my eyes and squinted as daylight greeted them for the first time in weeks. I sat up, finding my leg to now be healing in a splint and my arm in a sling. This set me into a more relaxed state as I thought wherever I was, they were helping me, _‘surely they must be nicer than my mother’_ I had concluded from this alone.

On the contrary, these people made my mother seem like a saint in comparison.

It didn’t take me long to realise that I was in a large cage which was covered partially by an equally large canvas, one side of which was rolled up. I looked outside and saw other carriages and cages around me, all travelling alongside mine. I wondered if there were other children in the cages with me, if they were hurt too, but I soon saw that the other cages didn’t hold children, but animals. In one was a lion, in another was a tiger and the last one appeared empty until I saw the outline of a large black cat within it which I recognised as a panther.

Only a few minutes after I'd risen, the procession came to a stop, and from there I was able to see the other people emerge from their brightly coloured carriages and wagons and begin to settle down. The horses were fed and watered and then the people began to mill about, some siting by their carriages, others talking. I watched them all curiously until they began to approach me and started to stare. I

didn’t like it one bit and turned away to hide, but there was nowhere to go. Every side of the canvas that had shared me had been rolled up, there was no where that they couldn’t see me. They started to jeer and taunt me, saying things worse than my mother ever had. I began to cry at their words, and at the realisation that my mother had been right about people, these were just as she’d described them to be, so why did she send me to them? I cried and begged to be sent home but that only made them laugh more and say crueller things.

A loud voice then silenced them and I recognised it immediately as the man who had visited my house who I thought had been there to help me. I felt safer once I heard this familiar voice and my heart lifted at the thought of help, little did I know just how horrifically wrong I was. I watched him approach, the crowd parting to let him through, clearly he was a man of importance.

He wore a dirty white shirt that had been stained by sweat and dirt from riding and tending to horses and such, dark trousers and a thick belt which housed a pouch that contained a large knife and also a whip. His hair was dark and matted and his eyes were of a similar dark shade. They held something else within them though that I sensed to be even darker, a malice of some kind, and at that point I knew he was no saviour. The hole I had fallen into was getting deeper and my chances of getting back out were becoming slimmer. I backed away into the bars of the opposite side of the cage as he drew up to them and smiled.

“Well, well, well, it seems my precious devil has risen.” He said with a sickening grin that made my stomach twist in uneasy knots

“Please Monsieur, I’d like to go home...” I requested timidly.

He threw his head back and laughed at me along with the others which made me shrink down even lower.

“Home? Why, this is your home now boy!”

He hit the end of his whip against the bars, making them resonate a deep clang which in turn caused me to jump and the laughter to resume.

“I thought you were going to help me...” I whispered, still trying to hold onto my last string of hope that he had perhaps forgotten why I was there.

Sadly I was greeted with that same cackling laugh and I felt my hopes slip from my tiny fingers, but I wasn’t about to let them go.

“You healed my leg and arm!” I cried, “you wanted to help me.”

“I did nothing of the sort my little freak. I was going to leave you like that, make you more feeble looking for our audiences, but Marie insisted upon healing you. I allowed her to do so, but it will be the only time. Don’t get used to luxury, you’re an animal just like the rest and you’ll be treated as such.”

“I’m not an animal!” I shouted angrily, my fear leaving me slowly as my dislike for this man increased.

Unsurprisingly, I was greeted with another mocking laugh as he hit the hilt of his whip against the bars of my cage, making me jump again at the sudden sound.

“What are you then? A demon? Because you’re certainly no human. Your mother did say you’re the Devil’s child, is that true?”

“No!” I cried, but he wasn’t listening to me.

“ _‘The Devil’s Child’_ , has a good ring to it does it not?” He smiled at me and turned away, nodding to himself, “yes... _‘The Devil’s Child’_ ”

I screamed and yelled at him as he and the small crowd began to dissipate, but none of them turned back to me. I was alone and didn’t know what to do, so I did all I could. I cried.

 

It was that night that I saw the light of a lantern approaching. I was too restless to sleep so I laid awake, shivering in the cold winter air. I felt the warmth of the lantern come close to my back but I refused to move and greet whoever was there. To my surprise I heard a soft female voice speak to me.

“It’s alright” she said, gently touching a warm hand to my icy shoulder.

Instinctively I shank away from her touch, expecting to be hit. My mother never comforted me in this way and I was not used to any physical contact that was meant to be comforting. She took her hand away immediately, apologising to me and introducing herself as Marie. This was the woman who had helped me then, I thought, but could I trust her?

“I’d like to just check on you and give you some medicine, is that alright? I’m not here to hurt you or laugh, I promise.”

I considered her tone, it sounded truthful enough to me, and her breathing wasn’t erratic in any way to tell me she was lying. Slowly I turned to face her and looked up into her eyes, they seemed kind and affectionate, and she looked at me as if I were any normal child. She didn’t make any reaction to my disfigured face, which was something I had never seen a person do, not that I’d met many. Though I’d seen enough reactions to see how people tended to react and that was enough for me.

I watched the well worn lines of her face crease into a smile as she looked down at me and I estimated her to be in her early fifties. She was much older than my mother for my mother’s face was not yet touched by the signs of age, she did not have the deep groves in her face, it wasn’t cracked and dry like the dried out mud I’d seen pictured in books, it was soft and smooth not haggard and worn. Her black coloured hair was long and wiry but was streaked with flecks of light silver whilst my mother’s hair was more of a spruce shade and was soft and straight. Her teeth were misshapen and stained but her smile was still a heart-warming thing to see.

She was very gentle and careful with me as she checked over my wounds and then gave me some medicine which she explained was made of herbs and various other things. Unlike the foul tasting oils I’d taken in the past, this tasted sweet and reminded me of honey. I thanked her quietly and she smiled at me again, but this time I saw pity in those sapphire eyes of hers, she knew my fate better than I did at that moment, but I didn’t understand.

“What is your name child?” She asked, her voice still as soft and warm as the rays of the sun.

Only now did I notice her accent. She certainly wasn’t French but she could speak it fluently. I thought she might have been Russian but I didn’t give it much thought then.

“I have no name” I replied quietly, still watching her eyes.

This surprised her greatly and she sat in silence for a time before she murmured “no name? Oh child...”

I was confused as to why she would have this reaction to me not having a name, I had never thought it to be of any particular importance until that point, but the tears in her eyes told me otherwise.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you sad.” I told her, turning away, “I never make anyone happy.”

“No, you haven’t made me unhappy chéri, I just feel sorry for you.”

“Why?”

“It’s not normal not to have a name.”

I replied with a slight nod , lowering my eyes to the ground. “Can you take me back to my Mama?”

She shook her head sadly, “I’m sorry, I can’t. We’re a long way from your home now, and Fitz is intent on keeping you here, he’s the master of this fair.”

I didn’t even realise that I had begun to cry and only noticed when she reached down to wipe away my tears.

“I’ll protect you as much as I can child, I promise you that.”

 

From that night onward, she did indeed keep to her vow and Marie became like the mother I never had. She would visit me by night, giving me food better than the gruel that was served to me at breakfast. I was fed very little by Fitz, and often I would beg him for food, even if it was vile, but he never gave me anything. He wanted me to look starved you see, he wanted me to look as far from a human being as possible as it would often bring in the crowds.

I was incredibly disobedient to begin with, and that first year of my life as an exhibit consisted of numerous escape attempts and even more lashings with the whip. For months after a failed escape attempt, I would enter into a very deep state of depression and little could rouse me from its dark hold on me. If Fitz chose to whip me, I would let him, if Marie tried to heal me I would take nothing from her. I became a very different child to the one I had been under my mother’s ‘care’.

I would long to die, I ceased to care about my future, I didn’t see myself having one. I longed for Fitz to lose control and beat me to death some days, I didn’t care how many lashings I was given, or how many times I was kicked and hit, nor did I care when I was dragged to the front of the cage and tied there with grimy bits of rope that were always too tight. They would cut into my wrists on the days I did struggle and then I would have my legs tied down also and my head pushed against the bars.

The more attempts to escape I made, the stronger the security around me would be, it got to the point where no one was allowed to set foot in my cage and the door stayed shut so long that it rusted and could not be opened even if they wanted to get in.

Many years went by in this fashion, so you’ll forgive me if I do not recount all of them here in these pages, it’s harrowing enough having to remember it all to write down, so finding the words to do so is worse in some ways. As the years wore on, my mental stability decreased steadily, and I knew I had to keep my mind occupied for fear of slipping away into insanity. There is a fine line between genius and insanity, it’s a quote that has stuck with me for most of my life, though I’m not entirely sure where I first heard it. I know that I would very often tread this line, and more often than not I would stumble between the sides, often veering more towards insanity in those days.

 

 It was only by counting the seasons that I was aware that I had been behind those bars for at least five winters before we reached Persia. On my travels I had taught myself new languages from the books Marie snuck into my cage at night, it would keep my brain occupied and would save me from drifting back into a deep state of depression or insanity. Marie also taught me Russian personally, which I found very interesting. I had never been taught something by another person before, and oddly enough I enjoyed it. Challenging my mind was good for me and I had soon taught myself Persian amongst many other new languages.

I had also learnt the art of hypnosis, which had proven a worthy skill when I managed to convince Fitz to get the key to unlock my cage, hoping that he would be strong enough to pull apart the swollen, rusted metal door so that I could escape. I had the plan in my mind, not caring where in the world I was, but unfortunately, my hypnosis was weak and he overcame it not long after. Once he realised what I was capable of, he had me muzzled for a time until I agreed never to use it against him again. But once we arrived in Persia I moved myself away from the sides of the cage, refusing to show myself that day.

I was tired, in severe pain due to starvation and I was quite certain that I was ill due to my revolting living conditions. I had only straw on my floor, no mattress, no blankets or clothes, and most importantly, no mask. I only had a tattered pair of undergarments to protect what little decency I had left but they, like the rest of me, hadn’t been washed in the four years I’d spent in my own filth. Myself and my surroundings were covered in a mixture of blood, mud, dirt and urine in places. I was only able to relieve myself through the bars of my cage, I was never let out. Unfortunately, my constant nightmares would leave me in such a state of terror that I often had little control over my bladder or bowels, so I had no choice in the matter at times.

I remember little of the day, I rarely do. They all merge into one and I find it difficult to differentiate one from the other. It also seems that Nadir remembers our first encounter better than I, but it is nonetheless a mostly pleasant memory of mine. They never found out about his presence in the fair after dark but Fitz had been drunk the last night we were there, and when he thought I was the cause of the noise, he stuck the whip across my back and told me to be quiet.

The following night we left, and I sat and watched as we left Persia behind, already missing the friendship I had formed with Nadir. I never forgot him though the years that passed after that, and sometimes in my darker days I reminded myself of that friendship, fleeting though it was. It would often cause a dull ache in my heart and a gripping pain across my chest to remember those few days, but it would also provide a warmth inside that would often confuse me at the time. Little did I know then that what I felt was happiness, that was how little I experienced the emotion.

Most children are raised with happiness in abundance so take it for granted, just as they take for granted forming lasting friendships with ease, walking in public and not being stared at or refused entry to places because of the way they look. I could go on, but I shan’t. Besides, most of what I would list would comprise of complaints that have lasted into adulthood, not those which are exclusive only to childhood. But happiness is something that children are full of, any person is in their younger years for they are free from responsibility, from morals and social expectations. They’re free to live a life without judgement for every uncouth action is put down to their young age. It is why they can live happily, they don’t care if they’re judged. Perhaps being devoid of this happiness is what turned me into who I have become, coupled with many other factors of course.

 

We moved on, town after town after town in every country imaginable for I believe four years after that. It was in the first of those years that I became very ill and Marie attempted to help restore my health but Fitz would have none of it. To have me immobilised was a blessing for him I think, he found it easier to move me and have me do whatever he wanted in that state for I was physically unable to fight back as I would often do. I hadn’t even the strength to open my eyes, let alone to protest verbally. Still my faithful Marie would smuggle medicines to me at night, but it wasn’t long before Fitz found out about it and had her punished.

But when a month passed and my condition had only worsened, she begged for him to let her treat me. Still it proved futile and I was left to suffer. For a time, she managed to mix in some medicine with the gruel I was occasionally served, but my stomach couldn’t keep it down and I would often vomit whatever I had consumed back up onto the floor of my cage as I could not move to the side. She tried all manner of methods to supply me the treatment I needed, but either it wouldn’t work or she would be caught. It took a good five months for me to heal, and by then a year and a half had passed.

My bout of bad sickness had only strengthened our bond and she would keep a much closer eye on me after that. If I was whipped, kicked, hit, stabbed or even scolded with a metal poker from the bonfire, she would be there to tend to my wounds through the bars of my cage. I would long to be held in her arms at times, usually when I was in great pain, which made my desire to be free twice as strong. I would spend nights singing to her or astounding her with tricks which I thought were incredibly elementary but that she thought were impossible.

If I sang for her, she would watch me with the eyes of an immensely proud mother, and those eyes would more often than not fill with tears. This would cause me to stop but she would insist for me to continue, telling me that she was crying because she was happy, because my voice was like nothing she had ever heard before. She would transform my otherwise lonely and depressing existence in that cage into something almost bearable. Then, just after the passing of the fourth year away from Persia, I found my beloved Marie had passed away.

Before she died, she would entertain me for hours with her stories, though not with those that would usually be told to a child of my age. I would listen to her dark tales or, more often than not, she would tell me about her life. She had grown up in a small town on the outskirts of Russia, living with her father as her mother had died when she was young. Her father had raised her alone. He had been a Doctor and she grew up learning about various medicines and the workings of the human body.

She would help him in his surgery from time to time, making up the medicines or tending to some of the more minor cases. The worst cases she told me in detail, all of which should have been harrowing for a child as young as I, but I found them fascinating. Her father passed away quite suddenly at the age of fifty-three and Marie was left with her fathers money and possessions but nowhere to go. Their house and surgery were sold and she had no family to go to. She lived a life on the streets for a time, surviving on the money she had until, inevitably, her money ran out. She began selling some of her fathers possessions but they only gained a small fee and it was not enough for her to survive on.

Just as the last of her possessions had been sold, she came across the fair, which at the time was run by Fitz’s father. At this point she was in her early twenties, which made me realise just how old this travelling fair was. She approached him one night as the fair was closing and asked if he had a place for her. At first he declined her a place, not rudely, but when she persisted and told them what she could do, he began to reconsider.

When the fair left her hometown, she went with it, and from then on, she became the fair’s resident Doctor. It was much later that she earned the title of ‘witch’ when she displayed her skills with magic that her father had taught her. She learnt how to combine them with medicine and old fashioned remedies and would sell them to those who passed through the fair, they would do little to the person unless they had an ailment at the time, they were all herbal remedies that would perhaps give them slightly better health, but nothing substantial. I learnt every recipe her father had taught her and the ones she had learnt since, which became very useful to me in my future, and also added another valuable skill to my already large and still growing repertoire.

She told me of the death of Fitz’s father and how the fair then took a turn under his sons violent and drunken reign. Fitz’s father, the original founder of the fair, had been a kindly old man. He treated everyone with respect, and anyone who joined the fair became a new member of his family. As such, he treated Marie like he would his own daughter and would call her his “ _petit merle_ _”_ (meaning ‘ _little blackbird’_ ) due to the colour of her hair. He adored her and she grew very close to him, just as I had grown close to her. Then he had only people and the fair was more a travelling camp of Gypsies, but after his son took over, that’s when the cages appeared, not only physically but also metaphorically surrounding the once joyful hearts of those that lived there.

He had animals captured and caged, he had every occupant become his legally, enslaving them. And, as slavery often suggests, the occupants were badly mistreated, perhaps not as badly as I but it was still no way for any person to be treated. Marie had felt the sting of the whip on occasion, or had her precious things taken from her. By now she had made the money she needed to start her own life and I had asked her why she didn’t simply pay him some of her money and leave and escape the fair. Although she had no physical barrier preventing her escape like I did, I found that she had other things that shackled her to the fair. She was enslaved by Fitz, quite literally. Should she do anything to displease him or try to make a mistake, he could make her pay for it, and by the sounds of things, the price would be her life.

So, when I allowed the news of her death to truly sink in, I realised things weren’t adding up. She had been in her early forties when I first met her, placing her somewhere in her fifties when she died. She kept herself in perfect health, bathing regularly in the streams we would stop by to keep herself clean unlike me, she would take three of her remedies a day and at the slightest sign of illness, she would treat herself long before anything developed. So how was it that a perfectly healthy woman died suddenly like that? Things simply did not make sense to me at that point.

So, rather than sinking into the deep, dark state of immobilising depression that was looming over me, I pushed it aside and focused my mind on the puzzling circumstances of her death. She was the only person I had ever loved and had a close relationship with, and though her death hurt me greatly, I told myself I would mourn for her later; once I had solved the odd circumstances surrounding her death. I had very few suspects but twice as many questions, so, when my prime suspect came into my perimeter, I began my interrogation.

Casting my voice expertly in Fitz’s left ear, I spoke in the disembodied voice of Marie. I had not yet reached the stage in my life when my voice dropped so I could still reach the upper registers with ease. I’d learnt to mimic voices easily, I’d often mimicked my mother’s own voice back to her when she annoyed me, so to mimic Marie’s was no strenuous task.

“Fitz” I made Marie breathe into his ear, “Fitz.”

He turned and looked behind him, his eyes wide and startled. I spoke in his right ear then, “I know what you did to me Fitz, you can lie all you like, but I know and so do you.”

He turned the other way and I could see his hands were shaking. I studied his composure and with my keen eyesight and even keener hearing, I was able to see him begin to perspire nervously and his breathing pattern change. Noticing that I had struck the right nerve, I continued in Marie’s voice, “What would your father think of you Fitz?”

This gained another reaction from him that told me my trick was working so I pressed on.

“What would he think of you if he knew you had killed his sweet petit merle?”

Fitz began to shake his head, his perspiration now glistening in the light of the late afternoon sun.

“You killed me Fitz, all because I wished to protect the life of that boy. If I hadn’t, he would be dead and your pockets would no longer be lined with gold. This is how you thank me? You take that which I can never hope to obtain again.”

“Please”, came his hoarse and strained voice, “no more.”

“When I begged you to stop, did you? I died because of you Fitz, now you must pay the consequences for the rest of your life before you plummet to Hell. You’ll never see your father again Fitz, he is waiting for you behind the gates of heaven, but you will never cross through them now that you have committed the ultimate sin.”

“No” he pleaded, tears now running down his cheeks and leaving their clean lines behind them as they fell through the fine line of dirt that covered his face, “please, enough. I am paying a heavy toll as it is, if there is anything I can do to right my sins, anything at all, tell me and I will do so!”

It would have been a pitiful sight to have watched from another’s perspective but mine, for then I felt no pity for this foul beast who was begging to this disembodied voice for forgiveness. He only cared about himself, not of the life that was so cruelly and unjustly taken away by his hands. A life that was taken because of me. My anger, which had already been simmering under the surface now turned to a raging boil and was close to erupting from my mouth. He had killed my Marie, he had killed her! She hadn’t passed away, she was murdered. Murdered! But, thankfully I managed to control myself enough to speak one more thing in the ears of that killer.

“Let the boy go” I said simply.

It was what Marie had wanted for me for all those years, so it was not a lie to let it be her dying wish. I was the child she never had and she the mother I never had. I didn’t feel it appropriate for me to say her dying wish when I had no true idea what it would have been, but I knew then that I had to leave. I could not be in the midst of a killer, and not just any killer, the killer of the only real mother figure I ever had. It made me feel sick that he had taken a life like that. Despite my hatred of the human race, I could never bring myself to kill, never. I would torment them, torture them with their own guilty consciences, but never would I take what could not be regained, never.

“What?” He replied, his tear filled eyes searching the heavens above.

“The boy, Fitz. Set him free and all will be forgiven.”

“Without the boy I am nothing!” He cried.

“He is a human Fitz, not an animal, not an exhibit, not a means of venting your pent up anger and grief over your father, the man you will never be. He is a young boy and deserves his freedom. Now release him or the chance for you to ascend to the heavens will leave you forever.”

He then looked towards my cage where I was sat staring at him with pure venom in my eyes, a loathing that transcended all other emotion and reason. I wondered if he had then realised that I was behind the whole façade. To my relief, he remained the drunken, brainless oaf I knew him to be and slowly he staggered over. Had I done it? Was this it?

“Yes Fitz” I said in his ear without my lips or face moving, “Release him and all your debts are repaid.”

How foolish that he would fall for such a trick, I thought. I had never known him to be a religious man but clearly he believed in the afterlife, in heaven and hell, in God and the Devil. What a fool! I had to prevent myself from smiling or laughing at his belief that he could be forgiven for murder by freeing me and sparing my young life. It seemed he did have a heart after all, and a conscience. I didn’t think it possible. He never showed remorse or guilt, he would only ever express his usually suppressed anger or self pity through alcohol, and usually that would put him in a much fouler mood than before. It shocked me to see this change in him and how easily he had broken down, his defences had crumbled and now I saw a broken man overwhelmed by guilt for his actions.

He fumbled with the keys on his belt, and to keep up my act, I slid backwards to the far corner of my cage. He pushed the large iron key into the rust filled keyhole and began to turn it. I heard the lock grind and clank as it opened and then Fitz took hold of the bars and began to pull. My cage shook and I took hold of the bars to stop myself from being tossed about. I watched him with wide, frightened eyes though of course it was all an act. Again he took hold of the bars and pulled. A fine shower of copper coloured rust fell to the floor of my cage as he shook that door with increasing desperation as it would not open.

Eventually, with one last tremendous tug, the door screamed shrilly and swung open. Whilst every fibre of my being was screaming at me to run, I knew better than to do such a thing and did not want my flawless act spoiled. The cage rocked to one side as his weight was added to it and he walked towards me. I curled up and turned my head away in mock fear of him as he crouched down in front of me and said one simple word that put an end to my years of tumultuous torture and suffering:

“Go.”

I slowly looked up at him, wide eyed and scanning his face for any signs of trickery, for after all, he could be putting on as much of an act as I. When I saw nothing, I slowly rose to my feet as he did the same. Both of us were stooping inside that cage and once I set foot outside of it for the first time since my last escape attempt many years ago, I found that I was far taller than him. How my back had not crippled I will never know. I savoured the sensation of grass beneath my feet, the somewhat fresh air now that I was out of my cooped conditions. I then looked towards him and my anger returned at a raging boil, the look in my eyes burnt into him and I saw him take a step away from me in fear.

“You should be afraid of me” I said, my childlike fear leaving me completely.

What didn’t leave me was Marie’s voice. Stupidly I had managed to retain it as I spoke to him, and just like that, with freedom within my grasp, it was whipped away from me as my act crumbled and fell apart before my eyes. I saw his mask of fear twist and turn to one of pure rage. His eyes flashed and his face grew redder and redder the more I looked at him. It was my turn to take a step back this time but I only backed into the bars of the cage. Just the feel of the cold metal against my skin however was enough to give me the strength I needed then.

I was weak, both physically and emotionally, I had eaten less in a month than he did in a day and it showed. My skin was paper thin and through it my bones protruded, jutting our at sharp angles. From head to toe I was merely bones held together with tendons and skin, and my face was no better. In my starved condition my deformity looked far worse than it ever had before, and my hair was very long and very matted with clumps of dirt and other much worse things entangled in it. He looked at me for a while before I saw him draw his dagger from his belt and before I could do or say anything, he lunged at me.

My shaking and very weak legs did little to aid me by way of movement but I just managed to dodge him and staggered backwards in the mud to his left. I knew then that I could not let him take me back, though I also realised that this man was a killer and I didn’t doubt that he would take pleasure in running me through, despite feeling remorse for Marie’s death, he would feel nothing for mine. Nothing but a pocket devoid of gold. Which would win? His desire to kill me or his greed for money?

Not wishing to find out which of the seven deadly sins would prevail, I knew my only option was to fight. How? I hadn’t the faintest idea how to fight, let alone fight a fully grown man who had been my tormentor for a number of years of my childhood.

Again I saw a flash of silver as he yelled and lunged at me once more, this time aiming for my chest. Again I dodged him, but the mud beneath my feet, having been churned up by the shoes of the people who had visited the fair and the earlier downpour of rain, was treacherously slippery underfoot and I swiftly lost my balance, my legs barely strong enough to support me. Fitz took advantage of my plight as I lay in the mud at his feet, trying to scrabble back into an upright position. He gave an infuriated roar, not dissimilar to the roars the big cats would give close to their feeding time, and it was at that point that I was certain he wasn’t going to return me to my cage.

He had been drinking, I could smell it on his breath as he screamed at me, and I knew that once he sobered up he would want me replaced in the cage, but in this state, he was too out of his mind with grief and thought that the only way to fix his problem was to kill again. It had deranged him even more. I could see what taking another life did to a man before my own two eyes, and I will never forget it. But at that moment in time, all I could concentrate on was staying alive. I rolled away as he plunged his dagger down towards my heart, causing him to miss again. But his dagger still penetrated my upper arm, tearing through my right bicep.

I howled in pain as he yanked it out and his plunged it back down towards me again. Despite my wounded arm, I had enough adrenaline in me to continue without feeling the pain too greatly, so I managed to roll away and pushed him down into the mud, sitting upon his back. He tried to throw me off, and I knew he would succeed when he managed to move his arms, therefore, thinking as quickly as I could, I snatched his whip from his belt, took hold of the hilt in my left hand and the tip in my right and proceeded to wrap it tightly around his neck.

I then pulled as hard as I could, leaning my entire body back and pushing with my legs to exert all the strength I had in me into that whip. I heard him gasp for air and felt his entire body writhing in the mud below me, but with his attention on the whip around his neck and not so much on me, I was able to stay put and kept pulling harder and harder on the taught strand of leather.

I could feel my right arm becoming warm and sticky as the blood from my wound covered it, though my arm was too numb with pain and lacking strength so barely felt it. All I knew was that this was my last chance, I had no other choice. If he didn’t die now, then my short lived life would be over before it had even begun. I refused to be locked up, and if I was to die, he would not be the one to deal the penalty to me. It was to be on my terms and my terms alone, he was not going to win. He had already killed my Marie, he would not succeed in killing a second time. My voice dropped a few octaves as I choked out:

“Die- Die Fitz- Die!”

I must have sounded possessed, my voice was so strained from the effort I was exerting on the whip and for a while, my own world became a black blur.

 

I heard birdsong around me. The warm afternoon breeze brushed against my naked cheeks and the smell of grass that had been dampened by the rain filled my lungs. I heard the horses snorting and pawing at the ground, I heard the cats purring contently as they stretched out in the late afternoon sun. The breeze rustled the trees around me and I appreciated their regular sound like waves breaking on the shoreline of a far away beach.

Somewhere I could smell food cooking over a bonfire and heard laughter and song, the sound of a violin played by someone with average talent carried to my ears by the breeze. The creak of wood and the complaint of metal as the now open door of my cage swung steadily back and forth as the wind caught it. I was surrounded by complete serenity and in those few brief moments, I felt nothing.

I felt no anger, no sadness no hatred, I felt no happiness, elation or excitement, I simply felt at peace with the world. My troubled and broken soul had bed my restored for a few fleeting moments. Then I felt my right arm was warm and sticky with blood, my head was swimming and I felt faint. My arms were shaking, as were my legs and I found it difficult to sit upright. I tried to take deep breaths, bringing my oxygen levels back up to what they should have been and calmed my racing heart. My ears were ringing in my head and I then felt a paralysing pain in my right arm as I tried to move it. With a cry, I opened my eyes and looked over to see the deep wound in my arm which was already coated with crimson blood.

I then saw the whip in my hand and my eyes followed it until I saw Fitz laying in the mud beneath me. I slowly pushed myself off him and knelt at his side, pushing him gently before applying more pressure and turning him over. His face and this very moment are a recurring nightmare of mine.

The first thing I remember seeing were his eyes.

Vacantly they stared into my own and I couldn’t help but stare back, unable to part my eyes from his. His lips were parted and his neck swollen and red. His face had palled and was turning grey and I felt my stomach twist. My short lived moment of peace, my eye of the storm, was shattered then and there, and for a time I could only stare before my stomach lurched and convulsed and I turned away, violently vomiting.

I staggered to my feet, collapsing against the side of a carriage and feeling my way along. I had killed a man, yes I had wanted him dead for a long time, but there is a vast difference to wanting to kill someone and actually doing it. I couldn’t look back at him, my mind was already spiralling out of control and I didn’t need to see that sight again. I stumbled along, using the carriage for support until I all but collapsed inside of it.

It had been Marie’s, I could tell by the rows of bottles containing medicines, herbs and oils, and the small collection of books that she had once given to me to read. I found myself taking a large bag from the corner of her carriage and began to fill it with whatever my hands came across. All her medicines I took, I took her notebook containing the recipes for all of them, even though I had memorised them all by heart. I opened her draws and found my treasured watch, placing that into the bag too after wrapping it in a handkerchief. I then moved back outside and went to find the food. I took bread, fruit, vegetables, a few tins and a spoon.

I also went to Fitz’s tent and took from it one of his daggers, a clean shirt and trousers and all the money I could find along with an expensive looking ring and watch. All of this went into the bag other than the shirt and trousers which I slipped on. They were much too large for me but provided better protection against the elements than my scrap of an undergarment did.

I exited the tent and walked around to where the horses were tethered and grazing happily. I looked at them all. There were three mares directly in front of me along with two stallions, all beautiful animals with their glossy shining coats, but I knew the mare I needed. I walked through them until I found her. She was a gentle creature and had once belonged to Fitz, like me she had been badly mistreated but she had had recovered and was still strong, feisty and full of life in her young age despite the scars she bore.

She had often poked her head through the bars of my cage and pushed her nose into my hand. She would snort and nicker softly at me and Marie had often said we had a connection. When I approached her this was all the more prominent as when she saw me, she came bounding towards me, whinnying and tossing her head about. I rested a hand against her head to soothe her and then began to load my pilfered goods onto her.

I had never ridden a horse in my life, but I had a good idea of how to do it and trusted this mare, knowing she cared for me in a different way to other horses. I was so weak that it took me a good few attempts to be able to climb onto her back, but eventually I managed to mount her and untethered her. With a soft click of my tongue and gentle squeeze of my thighs against her sides, she snorted and began to trot away. When I was confident enough I managed to kick her gently into a canter and didn’t once look back towards the fair.

 

At last I was free, but freedom was only the start of a new chapter of woe and torture in my life.


End file.
